


A Kiss in the Street

by MagnanimousTwit



Series: A Ben and Roman Adventure [4]
Category: Benedict Cumberbatch - Fandom, British Actor RPF
Genre: Abrupt kissing, F/M, Fighting, First Meetings, Phone Calls, Quoting the Beatles, more plot! what's happening to me?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 06:19:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagnanimousTwit/pseuds/MagnanimousTwit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After putting it off and bonding without any more games, Roman gets a phone call. From Ben. Wanting to meet her because he's realized he loves her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Kiss in the Street

**Author's Note:**

> Please check out my tumblr: http://magnanimoustwit.tumblr.com/
> 
> I take one-shot requests and really, really appreciate prompts. If you use tumblr you're better off following me there.

 

It wasn’t a conventional relationship. Whatever Roman and Ben were doing. But she did love him, she felt it deeply, wondering about him, worrying if he didn’t answer a text, wanting to see him, touch him, hear him, meet him. Only it wasn’t conventional.

What was such a nice guy ever doing on a chat site? Was he really a nice guy? Though, she was on a chat site but she was a good person, she liked to think. She’d even tamed her hormones and stopped sending pictures to Ben. It had just been a long time since she’d been a part of a couple.

And honestly after her slight confession they never talked about a relationship. Just saying they should meet soon. But still she acted like she wasn’t single, dressing appropriately and turning down the cook at work who asked her out. In the last six months she’d actually turned down a few dates, and if she went out with her friends she ignored all men. Roman wasn’t interested in anyone but Ben.

That day when he said they might be in the same shop, he wasn’t wrong, either. It made her worry just some. He knew what she looked like, and she didn’t have the same advantage. Though this was the first time they’d run into each other, far as either of them knew. They could cross paths every day and Roman would remain naïve, but now Ben wouldn’t.

For a short while she didn’t go out as often. Then Roman felt more confident. Fuck it, she thought. Now if they met, they met. Plans weren’t set though they occasionally talked about it. In simple ways, liked Ben saying ‘ _I’m out of town until Friday_ ’ and them Roman saying ‘ _I work this weekend, but maybe next week?_ ’

She was waiting for it to happen immensely. Only their slight hinting or sometimes her nerves kept it from happening. He worked, or she did, or it was just a bad time like when she sprained her ankle tripping over dishes a busboy dropped. Then, having talked for the first time in October, she was giggling to know it was April, almost May.

Roman was thinking about him after discovering that, walking towards her flat after a lunch shift at her boring restaurant. She lived in a cramped little hole in the wall in Camden. It was where that coffee shop they’d almost ran into each other was, as well. She wasn’t there, but she thought she should have stiffened her upper lip and let Ben meet her then.

Breaking for her reverie, Roman moved through a swarm of people, breaking out of it where the sidewalk stretched and there was plenty of space on the corner. She meant to cross the road but her phone was making a ruckus in her pocket at her bright trumpet ringtone. She pulled it out expecting any name but the one it read. Ben.

They never called, never talked, never even turned on the noise when they used to Skype. Now she’d hear his voice, and vice versa. She answered with butterflies in her stomach, heart like a hummingbird’s wings, beating too quick to count the thrums.

“Hello.” Roman smiled at the single word leaving her own mouth, standing still at the corner and nervously kicking her foot to the cobblestone.

“Love, love me do, and know I’ll love you, I’ll always be true.” A deep, chuckling voice quoted easily. Almost quoted, she thought, but it still warmed her completely. “I wanted to hear your voice.”

She could barely manage words. This was magic. Like being deafened for so long and then the first sound you hear being an angel. “I’m happy. I am. It’s good to hear your voice.” Roman responded.

“Say you love me.” Ben pleaded and for a beat she thought she might recognize that tone. Or perhaps she anticipated it so long it was just déjà vu from her imagination. Not that she ever thought it’d be so deep when he was so lean.

“I love you.” Roman laughed nervously. It had been years since those words left her mouth in honest.

It was also the first time she said it outright to him. In texts she only agreed if he said something about love. ‘ _I do_ ’, not ‘ _I love you_ ’. “And promise you’ll kiss me.” Ben went on.

Brushing a finger over her lips at the suggestion, imagining it for a beat, Roman smiled. “Promise. I would. I will.”

“And swear someday we’ll marry.”

This was taunting, beautiful, to the point she thought she might cry. “If it means I get all your books, yes.” She teased. “Yes, I think I would.”

“Please, please meet me.” Ben begged. “Say you’ll meet me, say you have time.”

It had been put off for three months, in all honesty. She’d wanted to for so long. Bouncing nervously, gleefully, Roman probably looked like a fool, beaming. “Yes. Yes! I have all the time in the world.”

“I love you.” Ben told her, and it was the first he’d said it as well. Hinting or not, quoting a Beatles song put aside. That wasn’t a confession, this was. “I called you because I can see you. I see you, and I want to come over, and I want to kiss you.”

Roman swivelled around but she had no idea in the massive amount of people, where might he be. “Then do it!” She couldn’t face the people, it would be too much for her. She was so nervous. “If you see me, come get me.”

She hung up on him so he’d have to. So this man would come and kiss her, and she’d meet him. As she waited, she thought about everything he’d ever said. How he was raised in London and sometimes fought with his older sister. How his friends at work were idiots who liked to do kung Fu moves. How his family lived out in the country, same home he moved to at twelve, and how he’d been all over the world and still thought London was the most beautiful city in the world. How could she ever doubt him? How could these detailed little stories ever be lies?

Then there was a small questioning noise, her name. “Roman?” She turned around and there he stood, taller than she imagined.

His lips fell to hers. Not before she caught sight of his face, however, or his long coat. Sherlock- no, Ben. Benedict Cumberbatch. An actor? An actor was kissing her, an actor knew her name, had her number, seen her nude. _Sent her pictures!_ She couldn’t respond, react, think. All that was sure was suddenly she was pushing him away and her hand slid over her kissed lips.

Ben- Benedict- that man looked hurt. “I should have told you–” He started, and Roman didn’t know she’d done it until it happened, but she smacked him hard. Hard enough her hand and shoulder actually hurt.

People shrieked. Familiar faces of people he worked with ran over – they were on North Gower Street, where part of the show was filmed. Roman felt tears prick her eyes.

“I deserved that.” Benedict looked broken, his eyes trying to meet hers, but Roman couldn’t believe this. “I did, but I never lied!”

“This is worse!” This was shameful.

As a short man, Martin Freeman, came up to Benedict, Roman turned on her heel and she ran. She bolted across the street and was just glad not to be hit by a car. She didn’t slow for a block, and that was only to wipe her cheeks. She must look horrible. Not only that, but she must have made Ben look terrible. Having him kiss her in front of a bunch of fans only for her to hit him, to run away after starting a fight.

Oh God, she’d smacked someone famous. She hit an actor, a popular one, the man voted sexiest man alive last year. Roman entered her flat in pure panic, leaning against the door.

That was when her phone rang. It was his name again, and she couldn’t stand it. “Shut up.” Roman ignored the call. It rang again, and she did the same thing.

If he was going to keep calling, she’d turn it off, but it didn’t ring. For a moment she thought that he’d stop. Then her text alert went off. Roman inhaled quickly and turned off her phone. There was no way she’d be able to resist looking if it kept ringing. And she didn’t want to look.

This held up for three days. Roman took a cab, strictly, to work. Then home, and she’d go nowhere. Stay off her computer, not turn on the TV, and her phone was forgotten on her coffee table. She read to keep busy.

He didn’t lie, Roman realized. Their talks were honest, but she couldn’t stand thinking of their teasing pictures, not one bit. But even if he hadn’t lied, Ben kept the biggest secret. She’d been foolish, taunting, and exposed. He knew everything, and he told her everything, except for that. It wasn’t a lie, but she meant it when she said it was worse.

But three days of dwelling was surely enough. Roman knew it was foolish to be completely out of contact with everyone else in her life. She turned on her phone that Saturday morning. It was flooded with messages instantly. A few texts from friends, but all of seven phone calls were from him over the days, and there were twice as many texts.

‘ _I told you I’d explain._ ’ ‘ _Please give me just five minutes._ ’ ‘ _Roman please answer your phone._ ’ ‘ _I do love you._ ’ ‘ _I’m so sorry._ ’ ‘ _I’m sorry._ ’ ‘ _This wasn’t supposed to happen._ ’ Each followed by his signature, each one more pleading.

The very last one was from the day before, from the early afternoon, when he clearly gave up. It said, ‘ _If you forgive, then I’ll wait for you to call me so I can explain. Please call me. –Ben_ ’

Roman felt like the broken ex-girlfriend rather than the one breaking his heart, and that’s not how things were meant to be. That’s what convinced her to dial in his number, which she knew by heart after so long, and she held it up to her ear. The answer came in barely a second and there was a flurry of words coming out of Benedict’s mouth.

“I’m so sorry, I really meant to tell you before we met, but it was all spur of the moment! And I love you, I really do, please forgive me. Roman, please, I meant every word I ever said–”

“I know.” She cut him off, curling up on her couch, lying on her side. There was instantaneous silence. “I do, I know. I believe you.”

“But do you forgive me?” His voice was so small, smaller than she’d ever heard anyone sound. Not a whisper, just incapable of confidence.

Roman closed her eyes. “I don’t want an explanation.” She told him. “Don’t try to give me one. I already get it. I would have freaked out or not believed you if you tried to tell me. So if you swear not to bring it up, I forgive you.”

“Really?”

She rolled to her back and stared up at her ceiling. “Yes, really. And I’m sorry for hitting you. Everyone must think I’m a bitch.”

“Actually I told everyone we’ve been dating and I did something bad. I’m sure they all believe I’ve cheated.” His voice was careful, testing.

The idea was absurd, and Roman laughed. She was very glad to laugh, and it bubbled out of her brightly. “Well, it’s mostly true.” Ben made light of this comment.

She calmed and sat up again. “You think we’ve been dating?” Roman asked. It wasn’t at all true, so why would he say mostly unless that was it?

“Obsessive talking, monogamous… sexual things, being in love. We may as well have been.” Ben told her. “And if you meant it… when you said you’d marry me one day. If I asked. I hoped a bit that we could call the past few months a relationship.”

“I had…” Roman took in a breath. “I had thought of it that way. The past two months, especially.”

“Then can we stretch the truth just a little and say we’ve been together two months?” He asked. “If, I mean- if you want to be with me.”

She wasn’t going to deny him in any way, not now. But she didn’t agree right away. “I said especially the last two months. This has been a relationship for me since I sent you that first picture four and a half months ago.” Roman told him. “I turned down about two dates a month.”

There was a pause. “Would you have liked to date those other guys?” It came out slowly.

“No. I’ve got you, if you want a pathetic waitress girlfriend who looks like she’s been crying for three days.” Because she had been, off and on.

“You’re always beautiful.” Ben offered quickly. “And you have me. For the past four months, if you want. Anything you want.”

Roman wet her lips. “How long doesn’t matter. I want you. So, stop talking and ask me out.”

He chuckled deeply, finally warming up to her. “Roman, will you please go out with me?”

“Yes, but you should know,” She started, “My last name is Brennan. Sort of important to know my last name, because one day you’re going to have to ask me to marry you, and I’m going to want to hear you say it just once before then.”


End file.
